Header Challenge 29th December 2010 � Betwixed or Between.

 

This weeks header challenge is the last one for this year 2010. imac had the choice for this weeks topic and he has gone with betwixed or between as it is the week between 2 great celebrations that of Christmas and New year.

There are lots of things that are between but choosing the right one for my header is never an easy choice.

I could have gone with a photo of the magical time between day and night as the sun sets producing stunning colours in the evening sky.

Or back to the beauty of summer looking down the river as it travels between it�s banks.

Keeping on the same line of thought how about the bridges that span between the sides of a river, in this case the Samuel Beckett bridge which allows Dubliners to travel between one side of the Liffey and the other.

In the end I�ve chosen photo taken at the Waddington Airshow. It shows the Lancaster bomber between its fighter escorts. This bond between these historic and illustrious aircraft is now known the world over.

Well 2010 is soon coming to a close (I can�t believe the next header challenge will be in 2011). I hope you have enjoyed sharing my journeys and photography with me this year. Don�t worry there will be plenty more to see in the new year.

Don�t forget to leave your comments, good or bad on everything you see, good healthy criticism is the best way to grow as a photographer, and I value all your comments and suggestions.

It just leaves me to say, remember to check in on my other header challenge friends, Tom-fishing guy, imac, Lanny and Gailsman and I wish all my readers the very best for 2011, and may the New Year bring joy and happiness (and lots of photo opportunities) to you all.

Stoneleigh and Max Keiser on Canadian Housing Bubble: "Expect Enormous Comeuppance, Tremendous Sense of Denial, Ireland-Like Dynamics, 90% Price Drops

Inquiring minds are watching a superb interview with Max Keiser and Nicole "Stoneleigh" Foss regarding the Canadian Housing Bubble. The interview starts at 13:42.



Interview Snips

• Canadian banks are not as "bulletproof" as everyone thinks.
• When the housing bubble bursts there will be tremendous consequences to Canadian banking system.
• We are in a massive bubble and there will be an enormous comeuppance.
  
• Canada housing bubble currently peaking.
• When you are in a bubble, the psychology is such that you cannot see it for what it is. Talking to Canadians about the housing bubble is like talking to Americans in 2006. There is a tremendous sense of denial.
• People pay 50-70% of their income for mortgage costs in places like Vancouver, but it's not just Vancouver. Such things are absolutely characteristic of a bubble.
• Canada will play catch-up to the downside in the fairly near future.
  
• Ireland-like dynamics absolutely coming to Canada.
• There is also a tremendous commercial real estate problem that will affect Canadian banks.
  
• Canadian banks have also acted as reinsurers in the derivatives market for a number of extremely risky things. So in a number of cases "the bucks stops with the Canadian banks".
• Real estate prices will fall about 90% on average. Deflationary credit collapse coming.

"Stoneleigh" lives in Canada and is author of the popular Automatic Earth Blog. Also see Stoneleigh and Max Keiser Flatten the Canadian Economy

I agree with everything "Stoneleigh" said in the above bullet point list except I do not see a price collapse of 90% on average. I think 50-60% in some areas is more like it. Even 40% would be devastating and that would be my best case scenario.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Today's archidose #462

???? ???????????, GC Prostho Research Center, Japan, originally uploaded by Ken Lee 2010.

GC Prostho Museum Research Center in Aichi, Japan by Kengo Kuma, 2010. Plenty more photos of the building can be found in Ken Lee 2010's flickr set.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

2011 is the year of the rabbit

Happy holiday and new year! 2011 is around the corner and it is, according to Chinese calender, a year of the RABBIT.
According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, which begins on February 3 (Chinese new year), 2011 and ends on January 22, 2012. The Rabbit is the fourth sign of the Chinese Zodiac, which consists of 12 animals signs. The Rabbit is a lucky sign, or so they say.
Now that I think about it, I should have painted year of the tiger last year, or this year actually 2010. But oh well. Well the new year is around the corner, I just want to wish everyone to have a good and successful year. I have more than a few goal to accomplish in the coming year and I hope you have plan as well.
I'm planing to do more and better with idrawgirls.com, of course. I have no idea what it will be yet, but I am thinking about it everyday. Well, I'm also hoping to get a few digital comics for tablet out also.
Then personally, I am learning how to read faster or speed read. A few weeks ago I was really a slow reader, then I found some speed reading method on the web (check out speed reading) then I try it out. Now I can actually read more than +300 wpm and 70% comprehension.  They said some people can read +1,000 wpm with +90% comprehension.  I would love to finish reading that fast so I could learn many things from books in such lightening speed.  Thus increase productivity and more time to paint.  Hopefully it will get better. Then I will also learn how to write better. Writing is never really my thing, but it might come in handy some day. One more thing, I also plan to run +30 miles a week. Currently, I run almost everyday about 3-4 miles per day, some day 2 miles, so it comes about 20 miles a week. Next year, I am hoping to turn it up a few knots.  
Oh year, one last thing, I would love to paint MORE, better and faster!  Hopefully the amount of work will exceed 2010 in quantity and quality.  Cheers!


For similar tutorials, videos and step by step instructions.  You can check out the new and update of the late 2010 tutorial on female figures.  First for figure study, you can go take a look at female model sheet or female figure study woman body proportion sheet.  Recline female figure study has two posts.  The first is nude recline female figure quick color.  And the second is female figure study recline step by step.  These two part tutorial I pretty much focus on rough brush work and play around with textures.  Both are the same painting but it has part one and part two.  Then there is a speedpainting figure study back which I pretty much focus on looseness control and brush strokes.  Also if you like comics style pin up painting, check out Emma Frost X-men first class.  This one focus on smooth rendering of the skin itself.  And Black Rock Shooter color sketch work is a really stylize that is similar to that of Anime or stylize Manga, but not typical.


Anyway, hope you all have a happy new year.


Here is a painting "It's raining rabbits."

Here are step by step digital painting "It's raining rabbits"

And final image

Here is a full size image: Year of the rabbit 2011

More full length PREMIUM video tutorials

Pension "Armageddon" in Pittsburgh; State Threatens Takeover of City Pension Plan

Pension stories seem to be going viral lately, not any story in particular, just the sheer number of them. Please consider Pittsburgh City Council, Mayor Clash on Pension �Armageddon�

Pittsburgh�s City Council ordered Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to attend a meeting today to hash out a plan to avoid a state takeover of the underfunded municipal pension, which may more than double its cost to taxpayers.

A vote to compel Ravenstahl to come before the council�s finance committee followed about six hours of debate on shoring up the pension system using parking fees. The retirement plan has about $325 million in assets to cover $1 billion in promised benefits, according to a consultant�s report. The city has until Dec. 31 to show the state how it will bolster the plan.

�It�s merely an accounting gimmick to get past Dec. 31,� said Scott Kunka, Ravenstahl�s finance director, on the proposal to use parking fees over the next 30 years to support the pension system. �It�s just a bad concept,� he said.

Pittsburgh, whose pension problem was called a �financial Armageddon� by two city councilors yesterday, joins cities such as San Diego and states such as Illinois and New Jersey that may cut services or raise taxes to meet ballooning retirement costs. Those states and 18 others skipped payments or underfunded their retirement systems from 2007 to 2009, according to an October report from Loop Capital Markets in Chicago.

Pittsburgh�s pension system includes three retirement plans for about 7,000 active and retired firefighters and government workers. Under Pennsylvania law, the state must begin taking control if the city�s obligations are less than 50 percent funded as of Dec. 31.

Raising taxes is not the answer. It would encourage both white flight and business flight. Higher property taxes would cause more bankruptcies from people already on the edge, barely able to get by right now. Higher taxes certainly would do nothing to attract business.

Gary, Indiana twice received special permission from the state to raise taxes to meet funding requirement. The result is taxes are higher and Gary is still broke. Instead, Indiana, one of 26 states that do not allow municipal bankruptcies, is about to. For details please see Indiana Bill Would Allow Cities to Declare Bankruptcy; Gary, Lake Station, Georgetown Likely Candidates; Hands Tied in Rhode Island

Interestingly, Pennsylvania is one of the states that do allow bankruptcy. I urge the Pittsburgh city council to take just that option.

Five Step Plan For Pittsburgh

• File Bankruptcy
• Outsource its entire police department to the local sheriff's association
• Outsource it fire department to the lowest qualified bidder
• Outsource garbage collection and any other services to the lowest qualified bidder
• Seek to reduce pension obligations in bankruptcy court

Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Corbett is a Republican. He takes office on January 18, 2011. Please consider Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Tom Corbett says transition team provides 'fresh set of eyes' on state government

Gov.-elect Tom Corbett met today for the first time with the small army of volunteer advisers who form his extended transition team, but he remained tight-lipped about prospective Cabinet appointments or his promised government belt-tightening.

Corbett characterized the collection of more than 400 business leaders, veterans of past Republican administrations, conservative activists, legislators and even a few Democrats as "a fresh set of eyes" with which the architects of his administration can size up state government and recommend new ways of doing things.

He is scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 18 as the successor to Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who is stepping down after serving the maximum two consecutive terms.

The transition team is divided by subject into 17 committees. One panel is assigned to the budget, pensions and revenue, for example, while others focus on topics that include health and aging, education, criminal justice and economic development. The committees will scrutinize 25 state departments and agencies, transition officials said.

The committees' final reports are due by the second week of January, Corbett said.

One Democratic transition team member at Tuesday's meeting was state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams of Philadelphia, who finished third in a four-way Democratic gubernatorial primary in May. Corbett has praised Williams' advocacy of expanding "school choice" � an umbrella term for vouchers, charter schools and other taxpayer-financed alternatives to public schools.

The city should be talking with Tom Corbett's transition team regarding bankruptcy right now. I bet the governor would consider it. Bankruptcy and killing untenable public union contracts, not higher taxes is all that can save Pittsburgh.

The mayor and the city council should have one master, the people of Pittsburgh, not the police and fire unions.

Pittsburgh's city council's obligations to the city are to produce the most services for city residents at the least cost. Public unions provide the fewest services at the most cost. It is time to put an end to this widespread practice that threatens to bankrupt numerous cities in the country this year.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Technology Transfer from GE to China will Directly Compete Against the Boeing/Airbus Duopoly

A joint venture deal between GE and a Chinese military-jet maker will strike at the very heart of the existing Boeing/Airbus duopoly in control of most of the world's large commercial jet market.

The Wall Street Journal reports China Squeezes Foreigners for Share of Global Riches

Foreign companies have been teaming up with Chinese ones for years to gain access to the giant Chinese market. Now some of the world's biggest companies are taking a risky but potentially rewarding second step�folding pieces of their world-wide operations into partnerships with Chinese companies to do business around the globe.

General Electric Co. is finalizing plans for a 50-50 joint venture with a Chinese military-jet maker to produce avionics, the electronic brains of aircraft. The deal with Aviation Industry Corp. of China would give GE access to a Chinese government project aimed at challenging Boeing Co. and Airbus in the civilian-aircraft market.

General Motors Co. established a joint venture this year with SAIC Motor Corp., its longtime partner in China, to produce and sell their no-frills Wuling-brand microvans in India, and eventually in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets as well.

The two deals show China Inc.'s growing international ambitions, as well as its increasing leverage over foreign partners. To make the GE deal happen, GE Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt made an extraordinary concession, agreeing to fold into the venture all of GE's existing world-wide business in nonmilitary avionics. GM, in its deal, contributed technology, its manufacturing facilities in India and use of its Chevrolet brand name in that market.

End of the Duopoly

Please consider Competition between Airbus and Boeing

Competition between Airbus and Boeing (sometimes referred to as the "Airliner Wars") is a result of the two companies' domination of the large jet airliner market since the 1990s, which is itself a consequence of numerous corporate failures and mergers within the global aerospace industry over the years. Airbus began its life as a consortium, whereas Boeing took over its former arch-rival, McDonnell Douglas, in 1997. Other manufacturers, such as Lockheed and Convair in the USA and Dornier and Fokker in Europe, have pulled out of the civil aviation market after disappointing sales figures and economic problems. The collapse of the Eastern Bloc and its trade organisation Comecon around 1990 has put the former Soviet aircraft industry in a disadvantaged position, although Antonov, Ilyushin, Sukhoi, Tupolev and Yakovlev develop new aircraft and gain a small market share. All this has left Boeing and Airbus in a near-duopoly in the global market for large commercial jets comprising narrow-body aircraft, wide-body aircraft and jumbo jets. However, Embraer has gained market share with their narrow-body aircraft in the Embraer E-jets series. There is also a similar competition in regional jet manufacturing between Bombardier Aerospace and Embraer.

In the decade between 2000 and 2009 Airbus received 6,452 orders, while Boeing received 5,927. Airbus had higher deliveries between 2003 and 2009, but fell slightly short of Boeing's deliveries, delivering 3,810 aircraft compared to Boeing's 3,950. The competition is intense, and each company regularly accuses the other of receiving unfair state aid from their respective governments.

There is a lot more information in the above link. Inquiring minds will give it a closer look.

Short and Long-Term Risks

The obvious long-term risk is China ends up with GE's technology then later dumps GE as a partner. Short-term, this deal will cost Boeing and Airbus jobs in the US and Europe respectively, starting as soon as production begins.

Moreover, this will put huge wages pressures on Boeing and Airbus. Think Aviation Industry Corp. of China is going to pay US union wages and benefits to its workers? The hollowing out of US manufacturing marches on.

Already Boeing and Airbus are continually griping about who is getting more government subsidies. Expect both companies to quickly start bitching about Chinese government subsidies.

Finally, look for large commercial jet prices to drop. That's what competition does, and that's the good side of this deal. Regardless of how you see it, we can safely add this news item to the list of deflationary pressures.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Office update and the plan

Well hello! I�m back with another update on my office redo. I�ve mentioned before that I had only one goal in mind when redecorating this space � making it BRIGHT.

And whooowee, it�s working! :) I�m SO thrilled with the direction it�s going.

Last time I updated, I showed you the difference a coat of primer and a couple coats of white did to the space:

OH my. Night and day. Get it? Dark room = night. Light room = day. Har.

Anyway, next up was to paint the ceiling and the upper third section of the walls. After visiting the paint section at True Value, I found what I just what I was looking for. It took a while though:

Yowza � HUGE selection.

I used my inspiration fabric and found two colors that matched perfectly! The first was the ceiling:

I have to tell you � I hadn�t used Dutch Boy paints till I started this redo. But I am in love. I am SO impressed with how well it covers.

The kind I got had a primer in it, but I still thought I�d have to use two coats. I had only used one coat of white primer over the (red) ceiling, (yes, red), and didn�t think there was any way one coat of blue would completely cover the red/primer:

(YES. The ceiling was red.)

But it covered in in one coat, easy peasy. I painted it at night, (hence the bad night picture) and was sure when daylight came I�d have to do another coat.

NOPE! Love love LOVE!

I chose a beautiful light blue called Purify. Here�s the formula if you�d like to try it out:

(By the way, remember to always use a flat paint on your ceiling!)

I gotta give more props to �my� True Value � every time I get a paint mixed there, they keep record of it under my name. No more looking through the blog to figure out what the color of my walls are!  ;)

Then it was onto the upper part of the walls. I picked a sand color that matched the brown in the fabric exactly. Again, I started painting at night, and right away I knew it was way too dark:

It was a true sand color. I mean, like the beach was on my walls, sand. I stopped at one wall that night so I could see it the next morning. But when I saw it in the light, I was still sure it was too dark.

We had the Bub�s birthday party a couple of days later, and I was completely outvoted � everyone loved the darker tone. :) I tried living with it, but it just wasn�t what I was going for.

A friend suggested maybe I should try the color of our family room:

It�s called Sisal and I big fat puffy fluffy heart love it. It�s my favorite neutral. So I had it color matched, but lightened 25 percent.

Helloooo! It was perfect!

It�s hard to tell in this picture, but the new, lighter color is on the left, the darker version is on the right:

I know the colors don�t look that different in the picture, but trust me. Or it could be just me � very possible. :)

Here it is against the lovely blue ceiling:

Sigh. It�s so PRETTY. (Don�t worry, crown molding will cover that red.)

I love the colors with my DIY pendant light:

Giddy. :) :)

So, here�s the low down on the changes to come in this space�as you�ve seen, I moved my farmhouse desk to this side of the room:

Before it was squished into the other corner. I love this set up -- I can be on the computer or working and still see what�s going on in the family room and kitchen.

This is the plan for the bottom two thirds of the wall:

(source)

Be still. my heart. :)

The window corner will get the following:

I�ve tried moving my rattan chair over there, but then I can�t get to the windows to open the shades and let the light in. :) So my dream plan would be to build a set of window seats in that spot.

Not sure how that�s gonna happen.

Dad? Hello?? ;)

Of course, the windows will get treated with this beautiful fabric:

I can�t remember if I got enough of the stripe or the paisley for the windows. It will be a surprise for all of us. :) (By the way, I got the fabric at Joann�s.)

My Pier 1 chair sits where the desk used to sit:

When I bought that chair years and years ago, I wanted the ottoman but didn�t have the money. Guess what I found a year ago at Goodwill? Awww yeah � the matching ottoman! For $10!

Once I get those cushions covered, I think that rattan texture will be perfect in the space.

Finally, the Bub�s old dresser now serves as storage:

And now that it�s up against the white, I know I want some contrast. Just not sure what color it will be.

I did find a gorgeous, stunning dresser on Craigslist, but it�s much wider. If I get it, the chair would have to move to the window corner. It�s a sacrifice I may just have to make, cause it is GORGEOUS. Ack!

That is, if it�s not sold already. Crossing fingers and toes! For now I�m planning on not having it, just in case.

So that�s the plan for the rest of this redo! I put off the painting for eight months, and now I know why. :) It took one coat of primer on four walls and the ceiling, two coats white, and a coat on the ceiling and upper walls. Yikes. That�s a lot for me, who usually does one coat and done. :)

But if I�ve said it once, I�ve said it a trillion times � paint absolutely transforms a room! The before:

And now:

Fear not color lovers � there�s plenty coming. I plan on adding punches in the art -- I�m so stinking excited about that part! And I�m thinking about one more accent color�haven�t decided on that yet.

And I am SO looking forward to having such a serene space!

I need it. This is what I look at as I type tonight:

Ummm. Wow. Just�wow.

(Think we have enough remote controls??)

A Christmas/toy store/trash bin BOMB went off in my family room. Actually, my whole house. Glad I�m done painting the office � I�ve got plenty to do. ;)

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

 

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